I have some exciting news: my collaged pen and ink piece, Elk On The Ridge, was selected to be sold at West Elm through Minted.com. West Elm is one of my favorite stores. --Ever since Vanessa Holden took over as Creative Director in 2011 they've been killing it. So I'm am thrilled to be selling a print with them! It should be available any day now-- I'll let you know when! [Edit: It's now available here.]
The above piece is actually part of a series I've been doing for a while now of animal portraits over collaged pieces of vintage paper. I started doing them just for myself and they've been really fun to do:

In this series, I've combined my love of animals and vintage paper. The pieces of paper were carefully chosen mostly from discarded children's encyclopedias. Its been a joy matching that perfect bit of color and shape with the right animal.

Would people be interested in seeing more? I'm toying with the idea of selling the others as well...

PS. The Every Girl has a great interview with Vanessa here if you're interested.

Imagine nearly losing your life, the ability to work for awhile, and a place to live all in one month. How do you recover your health when you have nowhere to go, a tiny income, and no one is willing to help? That is happening right now for my mom Stephanie-an award winning journalist and educated advocate who will be homeless May 1st after almost dying from sepsis and pneumonia in January. When no one was willing or able to help us find her a house I got creative, started this site, and decided to become an advocate for home.

Houseraiser was started for Stephanie but this is bigger then her story. Millions of people with so much to offer are struggling to simply have a place to live. If we can raise a house for Stephanie what else can we do?

So how it works is you pledge money and receive an art print and the money raised will go towards a home, or house project, for someone in need. I'm very happy to be participating with my House print (above.)

For week 2, the market focus was home decor and our assignment was to design a couple plates that could be used as a collection.
I drew lots of pods and "non-traditional" florals, mostly with a brush pen, for the first couple days.

Then, for my final plates, decided to work in "my style"-- pencil drawings, layered in Photoshop, with pops of colors. I don't usually work in this market, so it felt fresh and new to me.

I started out with this:

That turned into:

Some details:

I liked where it was going, but the colors were tripping me up, so I moved on (without finishing it) to what became the design I submitted:

It didn't end up getting chosen for review, but I'm really pleased with how it turned out. The two plates don't quite work together as one collection. But I think if I adjust the colors in the first one, and uh, actually finish the design, they could work together nicely. I'd like to make one more coordinating piece as well.

The biggest thing that stuck with me in Lilla's overall critique of this project last week, was making sure that your design comes across small. Nine times out of ten, the buyer/client will be initially looking at your image in a tiny format-- a thumbnail on your site, or a shop online, a catalog etc. The basic composition has to be be visually interesting and graphic enough to grab them.-- To make them want to see the big version, with all the details.

This sounds obvious to me now, but it caused a huge shift in me. And as much as I love this design, it really isn't all that powerful as a small image. (She suggested we "test" it as 1 inch x 1 inch --the size of a promo button:)

Ironically, the design I started with, has a bit more punch as a small image, due to the large shapes/graphic background. It would have had even more if I had finished it and added in the pink color:

Remember when I used to do Illustration Friday all the time? Yeah, me either. It was a long time ago. I thought I'd give it another whirl using it as a little drawing exercise each week. "I'll just keep it loose and finish it in under an hour." Uh that did not happen this week.
I couldn't resist the mermaid pull. Which will probably be one of many in the IF pool this week, but it was new to me. I hear mermaids are the new zombie/werewolf/vampire in the YA world. And I say bring it on.

I wanted to make her a bit fish-like, and other-worldly, while still keeping it for a middle grade audience age-- as opposed to the sexy-siren mermaid version. What do you think? Hmm maybe topless mermaids too scandalous for that age?

I'm still going to do a bit more with the lighting and a couple of other niggling things (eg I'm not loving the rough oval edge.) But there she is.

I got my copy of Uppercase's Work/Life Illustration Directory yesterday and it looks amazing! Truly the book itself is a work of art-- all the little details added in, the design. You can tell the care and hours that went into it. I'll try to take some pictures, but here's my illustration and some close-up detail shots!

Ah it feels good to unveil it-- we all made original pieces for the book and then promised not to show them ahead of time.

Anyways, I'm really happy with how it turned out. Don't those kids look like they're having a good time? I want that pink skirt...

I know they're supposed to be holiday cards, but they would be pretty awesome 'every day' cards too. I would love to get a birthday card, or thank you note on one of these. Heck, a family portrait like this would look great up on your wall.

I'm excited to announce a new collaboration with the wonderful LMNOP magazine!

You "send in your child’s photo (a portrait style is best), together with their dearest (or craziest) Christmas wish in 25 words or less. We’ll select the best five entries to be illustrated by Gaia herself and they will appear in a special feature in our bumper Holiday Issue.

What’s more, the winners will receive a print of their illustrations as a Christmas gift from us!" Head on over here to check it out and get more details!

Edit: I should add I do portraits on a regular basis as well! Click here for more info!

Sometimes drawing feels like work-- and not because it actually is. More like...things get dull. Luckily, when that happened the other day I was nosing around and came across Susan Gal of Gal Girl Studios. A little bit retro, with lots of great textures and patterns, her work reminded me to have fun:

All images by Susan Gal.

I recently submitted a piece to Uppercase magazine for their "Feeling Bookish?" call for entries. They were asking for self portraits of artists as book covers:

I love Uppercase. G got it for my mom for her birthday last year and she's been generously sharing her copies with me. Each one is so gorgeous and printed on thick luxurious paper...The kind of magazine you never throw away. Basically a lovely book, you get monthly in the mail, filled with inspiration and crafty people and amazing arty things... I could go on. But I won't-- if you haven't already, you should check it out for yourself.

Yep, I know what I'm asking for this Christmas.

Anyways, a few days after submitting my illustration, I noticed it up on their blog! Can you see it up there? You have to look close!
I guess I made the short list-- they'll print their favorites in the next issue.

Yikes, less than a week left in July! Hmm I still have a few more items to get to on my goal lists... But I did open a Twitter account and I have a new Facebook fan page! Please stop by and say hello...

Let's check in with my July Goals:

Work on making portfolios to send around to select clients.

Organize promotions effort.

Work on a new piece for portfolio.I have a bunch of new pieces and plans for more.

Send out a newsletter. (You can sign up here if you’d like!) Its going out before July ends!!

Tidy up my website headers and blog sections.

Finish setting up my online shop.(Other Such Things shop is OPEN right here!)

Work on the shop page of my portfolio site.Its ok for now. But will definitely need more work.

Send out some shop press releases to blogs.

As I mentioned above, my little shop, Other Such Things is now open! I'll be adding more work to it as the days go by. However if you see anything on my portfolio site that you'd like as a print, just let me know! Almost all the work over there can be sold as prints as well.

Aaaand one more thing, the prints I did for Ripple are still available for sale in my shop as well. ALL the proceeds go to help the animal victims of the Deep Water Horizon Gulf Oil Spill.

They're drawn in pencil and then digitally colored. The prints are 4x6" and available after you donate $10 towards the clean up in the gulf. Go to the Ripple blog for purchasing details and directions. Remember, ALL the proceeds go to help the animal victims of the Deep Water Horizon Gulf Oil Spill.

Note: These are digital prints, so I'm happy to sell as many as people want, especially as its all going to such good causes. So even if they're listed as "SOLD" on the site, just contact me and I'll get you a print!

Edit: They've been sold-- Thanks guys! But I'll be offering additional prints in my shop to continue to raise money!